'J72 VOLTATKK.
CHAft
relied, ami the tradition by which it, corroborated and interpreted them. The ground idea of the belief in the miraculous was an extremely anthropomorphic notion of a divinity, possessed of complete, power, but using it in obedience to motives which finite understandings cannot pretend to fathom or measure. Such a nut ion was the natural growth of the human mind, amid «uch a set of circninHtanci*H an attended thtt davaloptiu*nt and «*.Htablishini*nt of (Christianity. Men Hat in darkmwft, forlorn and without hope, and it in not liard for UB to 5ma;«;ino tlm exultation with which ftoiuo greater «j»irit would produce, and all othtn'H wotdd exnbraco, the itlea of thi.s misery and <hirknesa being no more than an outer accident, the mvHtiniiniH and incomprehensible dispensation of a divine being, ever alive to the destinies of men, but holding them in the hollow of an unseen hand, and guiding them in ways that, are not an our ways; ever remote from corporeal vision, but operating at a multitude of poiutB on the spirit of each matt through grace, and finally, by a consummating miracle repeated daily some thousands of times, ftovering this spirit from the probation of ilesh, and prolonging it» existence independently of the body through all eternity in modes of being none the lenn real for being impossible to conceive. To Voltaire thin was unspeakable foulinlmem The prodigies of grace, of the resurrection of tho body, of tho incarnation of divinity, were ittcoruuHtenl with tho qualities he, imputed to Urn creator of the universe, ami bunco he contented;/n;v*, i!v, p. tiVO.